Public Records Activist Files Lawsuit Over Moorestown Minutes

Moorestown, NJ -- Open records activist John Paff has filed a lawsuit against Moorestown, claiming the municipality violated the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA) in denying him minutes from an Ethical Standards Board meeting in 2012.

In the lawsuit, posted on Paff's NJ Open Government Notes blog, Paff claims he filed an OPRA request on Dec. 28, 2015, for minutes, agendas and notices for all Moorestown Ethical Standards Board meetings in October of 2012.

Two days later, the township filled Paff’s request for agendas and notices, but denied his request for minutes because they had not yet been approved.

Paff argues that instead of denying the minutes, Moorestown could’ve provided a copy of unapproved minutes labeled “draft minutes.”

There have been no Ethical Standards Board meetings since, and without the minutes, Paff, who has argued for tighter ethics laws for local officials, argues there is no way to determine what happened at the meeting without those minutes.

The lawsuit argues that the Government Records Council (GRC) egregiously erred in its ruling in the 2006 case of Parave-Fogg v. Lower Alloways Creek Township that public meeting minutes remain exempt as "inter-agency, intra-agency advisory, consultative, or deliberative material" until they are approved by the public body.

He argues that public meeting minutes are not "deliberative" because they do not contain pre-decisional opinions, recommendations or advice about Township operations. Instead, they are a summary of public discussion, meaning they can’t be logically privileged.

Township Manager Scott Carew had no comment.

“We just received notification of this and I have not had a chance to review it with the Township Solicitor and appropriate staff yet,” he said in an email Friday afternoon.